Day 4
US, HS, MK and 'the bus incident'
My notes say 'gave up trying to sleep at 6am due to Sy's snoring GRRRRR!' Sadly for my, my husband suffers from really loud snoring, when he's keeping me awake at home I kick him out of bed and send him to the spare bedroom but in a studio room that's a little difficult, I did toy with sending him out on the balcony but we saw a huge cockroach out there the night before so I decide I cant be that mean... boy was I tempted to be though 
I went to sit out on the balcony myself for a while just enjoying the view. I wrote up a few notes and sent a message to each of our parents before coming back in to shower and wash my hair. Hair washing is a massive job for me as I have so much hair, plus as its so damn curly it takes forever to get a brush through it. After I've finished I wake Sy up (mainly because the noise is getting on my last nerve!) and tell him to get up and showered. I went to sit outside again by about 9am to watch the giraffes. Unfortunately there is a young girl of about 6ish playing her violin on the balcony on the opposite side to where we were. If you have ever heard someone learning to play the violin you will know its just about the worst instrument to hear, its awful! This practicing goes on for about 20 minutes and then an older girl of about 10 comes out and she starts playing her violin as well, all the time with what I assume is their mother filming them! Honestly, how inconsiderate can you get?! The rooms all around them still had their drapes shut so I can only assume that they were asleep still, or at least trying to sleep (not that they could have known this as the balconies are partitioned, but they couldn't know if people were awake or not!). I was actually aghast that people could be so inconsiderate to other people. I saw a fair few other people come out on their balconies to try and figure out where the noise was coming from. And the worst bit of all of this? The giraffes were spooked by the noise and went away 
We finish getting ready and head out to pick up Hayley and Gareth at about 10am (while the music is still going on).
We had decided last night to head to Bob Evans for breakfast, we had never been before but H&G had and said it was really nice. They weren't wrong! I was really impressed (so much so that we went back there later in the trip). I would describe it as an upmarket IHOP or Denny's but no more expensive (or it didn't seem it to me). The place was more than half empty and we were seated right away at a table for 4. After we had ordered I kept myself entertained by taking pictures...
Hayley was busy berating Gareth for not smiling in his photo so I tried tickling him to make him smile, to which he then replied to Hayley that he was busy 'enjoying the petting' 
! OMG I laughed so hard! I think I swallowed my tonsils! I think what made it even better was that Gareth never says things like that. He's so prim and proper! Sy got that exact moment on camera, I think my reaction says it all!!
I dont remember what my breakfast was called but it was eggs any-way, hash brown or breakfast potatoes and choice of bread. I had eggs over easy, hash browns and 2 biscuits. The food was delish! We all ate every scrap 
We paid our bill at the counter and headed back out to the car. We went straight to Universal Studios and valet parked again. I was feeling quite good this morning so I decided to leave the scooter in the car, plus Universal isnt exactly an all day park so I knew we wouldn't be there too long. We headed up the escalator and through bag check and made our way leisurely to the Studios.
Once inside we went straight forward, we were going to head to Despicable Me but there was a long queue so we decided to bypass it till later and head to Twister, I know this attraction gets a bad name but it holds a place in my heart as it was the first ride I ever went on when I first came to Universal. I'm sure it will be the next thing to go, and there's no denying that its showing its age now, but even so, I just love it 
The others, not so much They thought it was a bit dull I think, but they humoured me
After a quick bathroom break we went to ride the Mummy, Sy wasn't wearing his contacts today and didn't fancy riding in his glasses so sat outside watching the Blues Brothers while the rest of us went on. This was a new one for Hayley and Gareth which they both enjoyed I love this ride too, still cant believe I got my mother in law on it a few years ago hehehe.
We then made our way over to Disaster, sadly even doing my best efforts to volunteer the boys for the muscle men, they weren't chosen, dammit! I love this attraction, I don't like the having to act bit at the end but I love the rest of it and the humour.
When we had finished our acting debut we headed to Men in Black. Once all of our bags etc were safely placed inside a locker we headed inside. I am very proud to say I actually won this even against boys! (which never happens). We then decided to head over to Moe's tavern for a drink (and a nosey round). We took the mandatory pics with the love machine...
Poor Sy...
Mine was much better
We went to the bar while Hayley went to sit down. I left the guys at the bar ordering and went to join Hayley as a server there was moving her off the table for 4 to sit 2 people at it? She told her that she couldn't sit there without food so Hayley was telling her that we were just ordering at the bar and were about to join her. She was still told to move to another table and they then moved the reserved sign that was on the table Hayley was told to sit at. So Hayley was moved off a big booth for 2 people and was moved to the table next door which was really small. The guys came back at this point and heard the end of the conversation but the server was being really rude with the way she was speaking to us so Gareth actually had to say to her that there was no need to be so rude.
Not quite sure what went on but we sat there with our drinks while we saw other people come in and sit down with no food and stay there for the entire time we were there without food and no one said a word! This is the sort of thing that makes us think 'we're not in Disney anymore'. We have actually decided not to visit Universal next year, and this isnt the first time we have skipped out Universal due to their poor customer service.
But back to the drinks... we just had to order a Flaming Moe!
The barlady couldn't say exactly what was in it but basically if you like still orange Fanta and dry ice then you'll do well
When we had finished we headed back outside and headed over to the next ride.... ET Another old favourite, another that's showing its age too sadly I still love it though In the queue we decided to come up with some erm, interesting -read childish- names! We did all go through different queues though to be slightly less embarrassing... The names were..... Dick, Fanny, Tess & Tickle. We just wanted to hear ET call our names at the end hehehehe. He didn't read them in any order though which was slightly less fun, probably on purpose to stop silly people like us!! We had the proper giggles for ages afterward, what children we are
We stopped outside at the walking dead set for HHN (I'm told it was this by Hayley as I don't actually watch it). Hayley was very excited though
We then head to Transformers again, Hayley and I sit it out, Hayley didn't feel the need to ride again as she hadn't really understood it yesterday and I didn't see the point as I already knew I wouldn't understand it We got a spot on the benches and waited for the boys as there was only a 15 min wait, we made sure we were near some shelter as it looked like it might rain at any moment. We were lucky though and didn't get wet before the boys came out. We then made our way to what would be our last ride of the day, Despicable Me. Gareth and I took the chicken seats at the front as we were both scared of feeling sick (even though i'd been on it before I was feeling quite fragile all holiday and didnt want to sick feeling sick anymore than I had to). Afterwards we spent ages going round the shop looking for something Hayley had said she would bring back for someone, we couldn't find it though
We started to walk out of the park as it started spitting with rain, it didn't rain for long though and it wasn't the usual Orlando downpour so I think we had a lucky escape. We stopped by a few other shops on the way out to try and get the thing we couldn't find in the shop but without any luck. We had the normal wait of about 20 mins for the car at Valet (even though there was no one in the queue in front of us) and being the mean people that we are, we didn't tip them! I've never done that before, I felt really mean afterwards too.
We hopped into the car and headed over to SSR, we wanted to pick up our new DVC membership cards, they hadn't yet been delivered to our home before we left. It wasn't really like we needed them for any discounts as we had our annual Passes, we just wanted them! LOL
As we were there anyway, we decided to have a quick look at the model VGF rooms. What harm could it do? Hayley and Gareth had already bought into VGF and wanted another quick look round and as I'm nosey, I quite fancied it too. I mean, we had only just bought 320 points at AKV so we definitely didn't need anymore points, plus i'd seen the pictures online of the place and I wasn't all that impressed. Gareth joked on the way in that he wasn't going to be held responsible for us buying in... Like that was going to happen! 1, we had just bought more than enough points resale. 2, we didn't like the rooms in the pictures. 3, we could just use our AKL points in the future to stay there...
I did have to admit, the rooms were *much* nicer in the flesh than the pictures, it was very luxurious, and yes, I was tempted. Sy however was blown away, I was as ever the sensible one keeping him grounded and saying NO! We didn't need more points, we couldn't afford it, and resale was much better value anyway... (even if you haven't read about it, you can see where this is going already cant you?!).
We left SSR and decided to head to 'Ohana to try and get a walk up. We got there at about 4.30pm and left the boys to queue up while me and Hayley sat in the bar with a cocktail each Our female server was called Ryan, maybe I'm ignorant but I'm pretty damn sure that wasn't her name, we had a good chat with her so I did feel like I could ask her about it and she said her and all of her sisters had boys names... though she did say it uncomfortably so maybe I was just really rude and upset her, or maybe she had someone else's badge on and was a bit awkward on being caught out! Who knows, she was lovely though She even made me a special virgin cocktail that wasn't on the cocktail menu, as the 2 virgin cocktails had things in that I didn't like.
The boys came over after a while and success! We had a table!! YAY only seconds after being given a buzzer it went off and we were led through to the very same table as we had in May. The food was, as always, lovely! We totally got forgotten about though, people who got there at the same time as us were paying up and leaving while we still hadn't had 2 of the meats brought round! We kept having to ask for stuff which was a bit of a pain. Unfortunately the table behind us had a child who was unwell, I didn't know anything about it as I was over the other side thankfully, but the child had thrown up everywhere. No idea how I missed it. I did wonder why the mum had taken the child off and the dad was left there to pay when they had hardly eaten anything, Gareth told us on the way out, think he was the only one to spot it which was lucky for us (but unlucky for him!).
Some pics from dinner...
Still not quite as good as the May shrimp plate but a good effort...
Before we arrived in Orlando Hayley and Gareth had a bit of an incident whilst waiting for Fantasmic, they had been to speak to guest services about it who told them to come back another time for priority Fantasmic viewing. All they had to was speak to staff member at guest services the day they wanted to watch. So we decided to head over there after dinner Guest services kindly let us all go together even though we hadn't been involved. So off we went to get a seat and watch the show. Stopping on the way to get a few photopass pics
Fantasmic was awesome! Though I did miss the big boat at the end with all the characters on it, they all just appeared on stage and waved ribbons around which was a bit naff (we later found out that the boat was being refurbished). We waited around for a little bit for the auditorium to empty (not totally empty, my bum couldn't take anymore of those seats!), and while we sat there we decided we really weren't all that tired yet, and as luck would have it Magic Kingdom had EMH till 1am.... Before I knew it we were in the car! We parked up and as it had been a long day I decided that now I had better take the scooter out with me (I'd managed the whole day without it though so I was doing well!). We hopped on the monorail and made our way to MK. If you've never been to MK in the dark, you have to do it. Its so pretty with all the lights! We decided to Dumbo first, there was no queue whatsoever so we each had our own Elephant!
We then went to ride The Little Mermaid, and as we came out we met up with Matt who was going solo for EMH. We decided to ride some mountains so off we went to Big Thunder, and after we headed to Splash but it wasn't part of EMH that evening, not really sure why. We decided to ride Pirates instead not quite as much fun but still a water ride By now it was close to midnight and we were flagging so we decided to head towards the exit. Hayley and I decided to get the bus back and let the boys head to steak and shake for a late night shake and that way they could drop Matt back to his hotel, so wouldn't have to get the bus back on his own If only I could go back and change this decision...
The bus incident.
We got to the bus stop as the bus was loading 1 lady on a scooter, the person she was with held the chain open for me to go through as well, I hadn't been on a bus with the scooter before though I had seen others so I kinda knew what I had to do. I went to the bottom of the ramp and waited for the driver to get the first lady sorted. The bus driver got her sorted and then shooed me away! He didn't say anything but to shoo me backwards with his hands, this was in front of the queue of people (admittedly there were only about 15 people in the queue but even so, it made me feel like a complete idiot), the guy who was holding the chain open for me just watched on with a confused look on his face. The bus driver came out and told me that I had to go through the queue line and not the chain with the disabled sign and he walked away again, the guy who was with the woman in the scooter turned to me and said that they had come through the chain so he didn't know why I wasn't allowed to. So off we went to join the queue behind the 15 or so people while the bus driver lifted the ramp and put the bus back to normal to let everyone else on, I zig zagged up and down the almost empty queueline. The driver sat on the bus as everyone got on until we got to the front of the queue. He then stayed on the bus while we waited, not really knowing what was going on, we waited for about 5 minutes while lots of other people joined the queue and went under the barrier beside us (as they couldn't get round me). The driver then got off and spoke to us saying that from now on scooters have to go through the queueline but now we could get on, so he closed the doors and lowered the ramp again (all of which takes ages) and told all of the people sitting in the seats that needed lifting for the scooter that they had to move, they weren't impressed at all (not that I blame them!). He then told me I had to drive the scooter on.... I really didn't want to do that, people were all in the way, so he told me that I had to get up and he would steer it on. Once it was on he then told me I had to stand up all the way back as there were no seats. A bus from MK to AKL, possibly the longest bus journey in all of WDW! All I wanted to do was cry, people were looking at me, people had to leave their seats because of me, I was stood up and I wasn't actually very well. I know it probably sounds silly but I spent the whole journey trying not to cry Hayley was FUMING. I think I could see steam leaving her ears. What was worse was that there were seats that above them had little signs asking people to move from them if a handicapped person was on the bus so that they could sit down.
We stopped at Kidani and the driver let everyone off who was leaving and he was about the shut the doors when he saw Hayley looking at him, he had asked us at MK which AK resort we were getting off at and we had said then it was Kidani. He saw Hayley looking and said 'oh, are you getting off here?' and Hayley said yes to which he replied 'well you can get yourselves off cant you!'. He was joking, we knew he was joking, but now was not the time to make that joke. I think Hayley's reply was 'well then, seems like we have a comedian' but the look she gave him was far, far worse. I was scared and it wasn't even directed at me!! We got off and went inside the reception and I went to the bathroom and promptly burst into tears (I also had a horrific bad stomach from the stress of it). Hayley went to the desk and asked for the hotel manager to come over and speak to us about what had happened. When I came back out she was sat in reception so I went to join her. We waited quite a while for the manager to come over from Jambo house, this did nothing to help matters. When the manager got there Hayley asked is she would come to sit down with us so that I didn't have to peer over the reception desk on the scooter. She wasn't too keen on this but she did come and sit down.
The hotel night manager was called Gray, she was AMAZING. She totally turned things around. She listened to us explaining what had happened and she was genuinely horrified. She was horrified at it all, but the worst bit for her was that he told me that I had to stand up, apart from anything else, they have seat belts so I could have sat on the scooter (I didn't know this as I hadn't been on the bus on one before). The boys came back to Kidani and were a bit worried that we weren't back yet so messaged us to find out where we were and so told them that we were in reception and they came down. They only caught half the story at first but Sy was about to go crazy on hearing it until I gave him a look that said 'please not now, I cant take any more upset'. Gray was just amazing though, I literally cannot say enough good things about her. Not only was she sympathetic, she was upset for me, she could see that I was shaking as I had got myself so upset about it and she was genuinely really worried, she spent ages there talking to us, about our trip, about her living in Germany and London when she was younger, about her children, anything and everything. We had such a lovely chat with her that by the end, we were laughing, I wasn't shaking any more and I felt about 1000000x better. She really turned around our evening, I didn't go back to the room upset unwell, I went back much happier and I really felt like someone cared.
Before we left she said she wanted to do something to turn around the awful experience so she would like to treat us all to breakfast, I didn't really know what that meant but she asked for our room number. I thought at first she might be sending room service breakfast to us but then she mentioned trying Boma or somewhere else. To be honest, I wasn't after anything from Disney other than to tell someone how I was dealt with, and how it made me feel, so I didn't really press her for any clarity on what she meant in case she thought that was why I had called her over there. We thanked her for speaking to us and making me feel so much better and headed to Hayley and Gareth's room.
On the way to their room Gareth and Sy let slip that they didn't *just* some shakes.... All through this trip and the last Hayley has been saying she wanted to buy the 7x7 burger from Steak and Shake, but they are only available after midnight, and she can never stay up late enough so hasn't been able to have one... well the boys decided that they were going to buy her one as it was probably the only chance she would ever get, even though we had eaten masses at 'Ohana! The 7x7 burger is 7 beef patties with 7 slices of cheese, all for the bargain price of $7. Its SICK. It looked like a heart attack on a plate. Hayley opened up the now cold burger, took one pic of it and declared 'there's no way I'm eating that'. That was that then! The boys never ones to waste food, demolished it between the 2 of them. Boys are gross.
How gross is that???
Before we knew it, it was 2:30am, I had been up since 6am! We decided to head back to our hotel, Sy drove the car while I scootered my way over there. The scooter is really annoying in that the whole things has to be charged at once, not just the batteries, and it was needing a charge now so rather than lift it into the car and then out again the other end I thought it was just easier to drive it between the 2 resorts. There was a nicely lit pathway though half way back as it started dying more on the up hill bits I did start to panic slightly I wasn't going to make it. I did though luckily but by the time I reached the room the speed had dropped right down to a snail's pace.
We finally got into bed at 3am, totally shattered. It had been a looooooong day.
Tomorrow, a bit of a lazy morning, and we find out just what Gray meant by sorting us some 'Breakfast'
) It was nearing time for the parade now so we got a spot and watched it from near the Christmas shop. The boys went off in search of a drink. They came back after being wished happy anniversary more than once (Sy was wearing his anniversary button), they said one guy looked like he didnt believe them when they said it wasnt the 2 of them as a couple celebrating teehee! 
